Ohh another Thread. Some users debate the new disk still in the "Where's the hype? " Thread (me too). The forum isn't so alive like in former times. There were very much more controversy for earlier albums (41 Pages at the Rise of a Digital Nation thread against 7 Pages for the new one, for example. And the album is still out ). However is there a chance that robert post another Play-by-Play? It was very interesting for the last albums imo.

Hadou

There were very much more controversy for earlier albums (41 Pages at the Rise of a Digital Nation thread against 7 Pages for the new one, for example. And the album is still out ). However is there a chance that robert post another Play-by-Play? It was very interesting for the last albums imo.

There was a lot of controversy because RoaDN sounded so different from what we'd come to expect from MaSu. It was far from a bad album, but I think it was a completely different record than many of the usual forum-goers expected and thus generated a ton of discussion.

Frankly, Phantom Shadow is fast becoming my favourite album from MaSu. It's so layered and there's so many throwbacks to previous work that it's like a big warm MaSu hug. It seems that the general opinion on the forums is in agreement, hence the lack of discussion. Despite that, the album *technically* isn't out yet, so many when it does officially drop we'll see some more talk.

As for a play-by-play - it would be interesting, I agree, but I believe that most of the fun around that was that it was posted way before we could actually listen to the album to let the drooling commence. If one were to be posted right now, even those without their CDs in the mail could stream or torrent it without too much trouble.

There are 3 reasons why the forum is dead:1. It's fucking impossible to retrieve a password, I lost mine, but i gave up, it won't send it, I reregistered.2. It's fucking impossible to register. The chaptha is too hard and you have to search for the 2 gigs, who the hell has the pation to do that? Like you have some classified information about IS or Putin.3. It's fucking impossible to post. Chaptha and gigs again.

I think this album has the same problems as Rise of a Digital Nation, the first 3-4 tracks are awesome (rare, but at MaSu the first track is the best mostly), but it gets blanker at the end. Now we even have resembles to older songs that never happened to MaSu before (The Second One is like Indiscriminate Murder Is Counter-productive). The SID chips are better than before (many times it sound like a real C64 game), but somehow it's not that smooth with the rock/metal parts, start the track with SID, but it gets full metal later, or starts full metal and it gets a SID part at the end. It like the 1741 (The Battle of Cartagena) by Alestorm, but the it was awesome and fresh idea. "The villain of this Story" is far one of the best songs of MaSu, I like Perfect Dark, Throne of Games is a perfect party song, Beyond Good and Evil is great, The Bigger They Are the Harder They Fall has a lots of retro, but somehow I wanted the feeling of Redeemer where all the songs are perfect.

There are 3 reasons why the forum is dead:1. It's fucking impossible to retrieve a password, I lost mine, but i gave up, it won't send it, I reregistered.2. It's fucking impossible to register. The chaptha is too hard and you have to search for the 2 gigs, who the hell has the pation to do that? Like you have some classified information about IS or Putin.3. It's fucking impossible to post. Chaptha and gigs again.

I think this album has the same problems as Rise of a Digital Nation, the first 3-4 tracks are awesome (rare, but at MaSu the first track is the best mostly), but it gets blanker at the end. Now we even have resembles to older songs that never happened to MaSu before (The Second One is like Indiscriminate Murder Is Counter-productive). The SID chips are better than before (many times it sound like a real C64 game), but somehow it's not that smooth with the rock/metal parts, start the track with SID, but it gets full metal later, or starts full metal and it gets a SID part at the end. It like the 1741 (The Battle of Cartagena) by Alestorm, but the it was awesome and fresh idea. "The villain of this Story" is far one of the best songs of MaSu, I like Perfect Dark, Throne of Games is a perfect party song, Beyond Good and Evil is great, The Bigger They Are the Harder They Fall has a lots of retro, but somehow I wanted the feeling of Redeemer where all the songs are perfect.

Captcha and gigs? I don´t get any of that when I post

I agree with you on Rise of a Digital Nation, only a few real winners there, but IMO this album is their best yet with only Throne of Games and Phantom Battle being slighly less awesome and feel a bit more like fillers than the others

I agree with you on Rise of a Digital Nation, only a few real winners there, but IMO this album is their best yet with only Throne of Games and Phantom Battle being slighly less awesome and feel a bit more like fillers than the others

I think you got that "it's new, it's exciting" feeling. For composition Redeemer was the best so far, but I prefer the atmosphere of Ivfteotw.

Had to register for this to get some reflections out. I am frankly surprised to see soo many celebrating this album as the best yet, since I myself do not agree.

By no means is it a bad album, it has plenty of good songs, but I think both A View From the End of the World and Rise of a Digital Nation are better albums. I am also a fan of much of their earlier stuff, but on those (the earlier albums) I find myself more picking and choosing more. As for Phantom Shadow, it sometimes strike me as not having as good a musical flow as A View and Digital Nation.

What surpises me most when reading others opinion of this new album is the praise for the song "Europa". It is the only song I find myself simply skipping when I listen through Phantom Shadow. Now I typically like the variety the calmer more athmospheric songs bring to the MaSu lineup, but this one... I dunno. The swipe sounds (sounds like someone moving fingers over the strings on a guitar as they switch chords) are way to pronounced and cuts through the tune and hurts my ears in the same wein as fingernails on a blackboard. Totally ruins the immersion and the impact of the lyrics. As the song pics up a bit of pace it just turns into something that sounds, to me, pretty mainstream (except for those sharp swipe noises still). Not a fan of that song _at all_.

Yay new album though!

P.S. That capatcha bit is really annoying. Understand it for registering but for posting too?

I would suppose the forum not to be dead ... only sleeping and waiting for resurrection together with IRC, when FB and friends fade away. And finally it teased me to post something, after a decade of just staring.

Anyway, for me it took several rounds to warm with it, but in my experience all great albums took a while.Now it's getting better each time. My kids can tell a story, they don't hear much else these days. Honestely there is not really something, which I don't like in the complete musical production so far, apart from the synthezied choir in Machine Prime (but that's a minor ne :-P).

This. Soooo much this.Though, I suppose I would not say that I can not be succeeded, in fact it would be awesome if it was since that would mean I got to hear an even more awesome song... but yes, so far it holds true for me. So far Flagcarrier has not been succeeded on its slow MaSu song throne.

So basically you say that any sound is enjoyable as long as it comes with a MaSu logo? I can not quite agree with that. Does that not belittle their achievements? I suppose you could mean you the sounds (every single one) they have produced so far just happens to coincide with what you find enjoyable though that would mean that you either have a very broad range of things you find enjoyable, or you have a very specific taste which MaSu just has happened to nail spot on with every song. The second alternative is rather... let us say you must be very fortunate for that to be true (in which case, yay for you!).

But, back to the new album....

Really liking "The Bigger They Are The Harder They Fall". Allowing the first half (or even slightly more?) to be instrumental is really nice. Allows the SID sounds to shine mixed in with the conventional metal instruments. Sets the scene nicely for when the vocals actually get to join in. Makes the vocals seem a bit more special when they are not a given.

"Versus" is another really nice one. The vocals here takes a more central role. I like the rythm of the vocals in the verses and the refrain is strong and memorable and the instruments are strong throughout (3:30 to like 4:30 they are allowed to play along by their selves to great success).

"Perfect Dark" has a wonderful intro and the voice and lyrics are really nice in this one. Different and something that gave me a bit of pause at first, but I've found I really like it. Verses (except the last one that I think is not as good as the first two) and the lead in to the refrain I find are really nice.

Those are the ones that pop out to me after having listened to the album a few times over the day. Not that the others are not excellent (well except Europa that I still can not get myself to like. Have problems even listening through it =/) but these are the ones that currently stick out a bit extra for me.

So basically you say that any sound is enjoyable as long as it comes with a MaSu logo? I can not quite agree with that. Does that not belittle their achievements? I suppose you could mean you the sounds (every single one) they have produced so far just happens to coincide with what you find enjoyable though that would mean that you either have a very broad range of things you find enjoyable, or you have a very specific taste which MaSu just has happened to nail spot on with every song. The second alternative is rather... let us say you must be very fortunate for that to be true (in which case, yay for you!).

I'm quite sure (due to feeling the same about this subject) that he meant that if a song has "MaSu logo" on it, as you said, it is pretty much guaranteed to be very high quality music = done with very much thought and skill put into it.